The introduction presents a history of the current state of scholarship on cultural contacts in the Baltic prior to the High Middle Ages. We discuss the challenges of bringing together the separate disciplinary and national traditions. Each academic subject has evolved largely as a separate practice across much of the twentieth century, with only a gradual and often limited integration with the more recent movements toward interdisciplinarity. Furthermore, each discipline operates to a great extent within national traditions, maintained by language barriers and funding structures, making international dialogues crucially important. This introduction is intended as a steppingstone for gaining perspective on the diverse contributions to the the present volume.